So, the two parter is a Mugen background piece. Mugen was a pirate. Sort of. But that's not important, the important fact is that we get to see the two people Mugen grew up with. The girl he may sort of like and her older brother, who betrayed Mugen (left him to be caught by the equivalent of the police, and was to be executed, except Mugan voluntarily jumped off the cliff because he was only going to die on his own terms).

LOVE!

It is really hard to articulate the two episodes without getting all jumbled up. The first episode introduce the characters from Mugen's past; a girl and her brother (can't remember their names). Through out the episodes the girl comment several times that she can't survive on her own, hence staying with her brother whom she hates. On several occasions she has asked Mugen to take her away from her brother. I pity her.

Anyways, Mugen end up helping said friend who betrayed him on a new job, hijacking a ship carrying a lots of gold (implication that Mugen is doing this to help the girl, but you never know because this is Champloo, and they are not going to give you anything too easily). But yes, Mugen goes on the job, and of course gets betrayed again. The episode end with the ship Mugen is on going up in a huge explosion. Fuu, Jin and the girl (who ran to them telling them it was a trap, so, please go and save Mugen) has horrified expression on their faces.

I'm so happy when I have both parts of a two parter ^_^

The second part is beautiful. I love the music that was played during Mugen's little journey down the ocean (he's sinking -_-;). Lots of flashback scenes that I can't make head and tails out of (need to re-watch). But it is just beautiful. So, while Mugen is MIA, the girl asks Jin to kill her brother (bad brother for betraying Mugen, who I like, blah, blah). Jin complies (he seems angry, not pissed like the way when Mugen annoys him, I mean really angry. So, yeah. Girl take Jin to see her brother and the man who helped them from the inside to rob the ship. Girl goes through the door to meet dood, and Jin pretty much KO the man, saying 'I was meant to kill him,' (or something to that effect). Guy starts to laugh saying that they were both betrayed. Jin is samrt enough to rush through the door where the girl went through. It seems the girl has gone off with the dood. They have all been had.

Meanwhile this is happening, Fuu find Mugen in a net (some fisherman fished Mugen up). While Fuu goes off to get food for Mugen, our dear man goes off on his own. Half way on his journey to hunt down the man who betrayed him, Mugen meet up with Jin. Jin tells Mugen what happened. Mugen keeps on walking.

The episode ends with Mugen killing (really vicious and efficient, you can tell it's personal) the man who's with the girl and just keep on walking past her, while she's screaming to be killed. It's sad. Mugen gets betrayed by the girl he wants to help, and the girl is left in a world she can't live in because she has always used strong men to take care of her.



First things first, the manga is FAR superior than the anime!

Moving on, Fuji goes to visit Tachibana to measure how strong he is, 'cos Tachbana was with one of the strongest schools last year! Game starts, and Fuji is EVIL like thinking that if this is the level of the players then he'll have no problem.

Meanwhile, Ann phones up Kamio explaining the whole thing, Kamio rushes over, and Ann reveal that Tachibana use to play LIKE Kirihara! The mind boggles. And the reason Tachibana left his old school was because he damaged some player's eye so badly in a match that they could never play tennis again. So, Tachibana left and shaved his head, and was all set on not playing tennis but he couldn't stop because Tachibana lived for tennis *sniffles*

But yes, Tachibana is about to play SERIOUSLY against Fuji! Fuji darling, I adore you, but it is never good when you become to smug. Taking you down a few pegs will be good for you.